NEW COASTAL RECREATION STUDY WILL HELP INFORM OREGON OCEAN PLANNING

March 18 2011

A new report on non-consumptive ocean recreation in Oregon reveals that 80% of Oregonians visited the coast last year, generating an estimated $2.4 billion in expenditures.

The study, a collaboration between the Surfrider Foundation, Ecotrust, and NaturalEquity, was conducted with the support of state agencies to inform Oregon’s current process to update its Territorial Sea Plan (TSP).

The TSP requires Oregon to protect and encourage “beneficial uses of ocean resources,” such as navigation, food production, and recreation, and this study is part of a broader effort to identify and map those uses. It collected spatial—or geographic—information on various activities.

Oregon’s TSP is being updated to help state planners identify suitable locations for wave energy development off the coast. Information related to the update process, including the final report from this study, is available to the public on Oregon’s ocean information website: www.oregonocean.info/.

“The Surfrider study provides state agencies and the Ocean Policy Advisory Council with solid spatial data about a wide range of ocean recreational uses that contribute significantly to the coastal economy, and need to be considered as we create a plan for how we'll use our ocean in the future”, said Paul Klarin, Marine Program Coordinator with the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development.

The study surveyed 4,000 Oregonians to track participation in activities such as surfing, kayaking, wildlife viewing, and beach going, as well as the economic expenditures related to these uses.

Some of the report’s key findings include:

An estimated 80% of Oregon residents have visited the coast at least once in the past year.

Oregon residents took an estimated 27 million trips to the coast in 2010, 88 percent of which the primary purpose was recreation.

Visits to the coast by Oregon residents in 2010 generated an estimated $2.4 billion in total direct expenditures

Actiivities such as water sports, beach going, wildlife viewing, and boating are widely practiced along the full geographic extent of the Oregon coast.